Service dog and training provided by Operation Freedom Paws.

“Kairu helps me in a lot of ways. Sometimes she’ll jump up in my lap if she knows I’m depressed. On the physical side, I have a hearing loss from shelling gone bad so I can’t hear somebody coming in the house, but she alerts me by her reaction.

“We have a command called ‘block’ where the dog goes in front of you to create a barrier between you and other people, and another command, ‘watch my back,’ where the dog goes behind you to create that same barrier. This helps a lot when I’m out in a crowd, in tight quarters and start to feel uncomfortable. She helps me with mobility too because I’ve had many surgeries for my back and neck. It’s hard for me to sometimes walk or go upstairs and she provides a little support. It’s very subtle, the ways that she gives me a lot of support.”

-Marvin Lewis